I’ve had a Stages SB20 for around 18 months now. I ride around 10-11k miles a year, mostly indoors, so having a bike that requires not too much maintenance is nice. I wax my chains, and have a few chains I use, but I was still waxing pretty frequently and also changed out my chainrings and a few cassettes. Less maintenance is the nice thing as well as not worrying about swapping a bike onto or off the trainer.
For the new buyers - do NOT buy a Stages sb20!!!
I recently tried to buy one and they sent me a bike that never worked. That in itself happens, but customer service was absolutely zero. I mean zero - nobody called me, answered my emails, ever, for 4 months. I called dutifully every week to leave messages (that were VERY patient and nice), but nobody ever answered.
Only after I started posting about it on a FB SB20 group that I was fed up and had already gotten my credit card to approve of refunding my money in full, did they have someone who saw the post, call me to set up the return of the bike - they couldn’t even offer to fix or replace the bike as they had no parts available.
As far as I know, this problem is still ongoing, so even if it’s a solid piece of kit when it works, avoid at all costs for now until other folks are confident that customer service exists, even if it’s in the most trivial extent.
I do have a Kickr Gen1 that I’ve been hoping would die or malfunction at some point, but jeez, the thing is totally solid, even though it lives in a high-condensation garage that’s fried the electronics in my treadmill twice, and gets sweated on (I never wipe it, even).
I’ll likely buy the non-inclining Kickr bike in the future, esp if there’s a sale - the incline sounds fun but most of the problems I’ve heard about the bike (esp the creaking noises) seem to be due to the inclinable hinge.